Wendt finds greyhound calling

By Jordan Gerrans

The emerging Carlin Wendt is enjoying the greatest month yet of his training tenure and he is eager to see if it can continue with a couple of runners over the coming days. 

At just 26 years of age, Wendt is developing his own kennel at Postmans Ridge after initially getting involved in the sport as an owner. 

He prepares a team of 15 in his kennel which he hopes to increase to 20 in the not-too-distant future. 

The Wendt kennel has been in operation since February of this year and in recent weeks, they have hit a prolific patch. 

In the last month, the up-and-coming dog man has prepared five winners, with three coming in the space of 48 hours in early November. 

He heads to the track with Chill Pill Jill and Akela Long Shot on Sunday and Monday respectively with an eye to keeping the positive results rolling. 

The purchase of chaser Zipping Peewee about three years ago sparked Wendt’s new involvement in the industry.

Zipping Peewee won 17 races – with five of those at Rockhampton - from 64 attempts before retiring in late 2023.

“I always seemed to have good success with the dogs that I owned and that made me keep going,” he said.

“It snowballed from there.

“I just accumulated dogs and sent them to trainers.”

As well as training his own team, Wendt also works at the iconic Postmans Ridge greyhound facility at the bottom of the Toowoomba range, which is run by fellow trainer John Jeffrey.

He has also been mentored by conditioner Ricky Hassall before taking out his own training ticket. 

“Ricky trained a lot of dogs that I owned before he moved back to Bundaberg,” Wendt said.

“He told me that he didn’t have kennel space to take my dogs with him so I decided, instead of going to find another trainer for these dogs, I would give it a spin myself.

“It has been good.

“It is tough to start training myself like I did but I was blessed to work for people like Ricky and others who have been in the industry for a lot of years.

“It was a lot to take in at the start, but I found I knew a lot after working for people over the years.

“I haven’t looked back since I had my first winner, it took me a while to hit my strides, but I haven’t looked back since.

“I had been around the dogs since I was really young but I didn’t have anything directly to do with them until recently.”

Wendt says Hassall taught him basically everything he knows about greyhound racing while other trainers also took him under their wing. 

Wendt’s grandmother Helen also previously trained a kennel of dogs with Carlin recalling being around her chasers when he was about five years of age. 

When Chill Pill Jill, Lucora and Super Wine all won at The Q in the space of 48 hours, the young trainer says the results reaffirmed his training methods.

Interestingly, all three winners jumped from the four alley.

Lucora has been the most successful dog Wendt has prepared so far this year, with the black chaser racking up $16,455 in stakes with six victories and four minor placings. 

Chill Pill Jill (Q2 Parklands on Sunday) and Akela Long Shot (Q Straight on Monday) have both drawn the red rag for their assignments over the next few days. 

“Chill Pill Jill goes to a very hard race with some dogs trained by Travis Elson and Tom Tzouvelis in it,” Wendt said.

“They are always hard to beat. If Chill Pill Jill comes out well from the red and finds the front, she will run well.

“Akela Long Shot is coming back from an injury so he will go up the straight to get some fitness back into him.

“He is a good dog when he is on and anything can happen.”